The location and dimensions are accurate – I georeferenced a map, created a runway shapefile and uploaded that to Google Earth so I could see it. The planned over-run of Highway 101 at the far end is also accurate. The cockpit-view is of course fake, as is the runway lighting. My too-shallow landing approach would have yielded an “F” grade from my flight instructor.
But we’re talking about the PRSC here. Seen through the lens of history, the “joint venture” was seemingly incapable of recognizing its own “failed-approaches” over time.
Context
When I first built this website to “map things” so I could better understand land and forest ownership issues, I wrote:
- “There are three major landowners: Catalyst Paper, Island Timberlands, and the PRSC Limited Partnership.
- Together these three entities own about 29% of the land contained within city limits, and 64% of the original Lot 450 .
- The history of land ownership is convoluted, but these three “big players” are the reason why this website is designed the way it is.”
That was then. My map-making skills have improved somewhat. And rather a lot has happened since those first heady “stop-the-cut” days of 2015. But I didn’t anticipate this:
The PRSC is no more
It’s true.
Quietly and without fanfare, the PRSC Limited Partnership has dissolved itself. Behind closed doors. Admittedly there were clues that this was going to happen.
Indeed the Peak reported, way back in April, that the writing was on the wall:
“Tla’amin is proposing that it and the city dissolve PRSC Limited Partnership, a joint venture between the city and Tla’amin’s Tees’kwat Land Holdings, with each entity holding a single share.”
I kept looking for, without success, some “official” notification that this had actually happened. I couldn’t find it in the Peak or in City Council documents. And as has happened before, several links to external documents from this website simply “disappeared” overnight. Panic set in: my goodness, now I’ll have to redraw my maps and redesign the entire website! No. That won’t happen. Why? That’s easy.
But I digress.
In the course of looking for other stuff, land title searches revealed that ownership of the Old Golf Course and Gibson’s Beach properties had changed on 14 September (with the golf course going to the Powell River Waterfront Development Corporation and Gibson’s going to Tla’amin Nation). Exactly as the Peak had reported.
Click to enlarge
Social media reported on 15 January that “a search of company records indicates that on December 11, 2018 PRSC was dissolved.” That may be true. Perhaps one day a kind reader will share that document so I can post it here.
For me, the final piece of the puzzle arrived just a few days ago, when a colleague pointed me to the November issue of Neh Motl, the Tla’amin Nation newsletter.
Sure enough, there it is, on page 15. The final PRSC meeting occurred three days before land-transfer applications were received by Land Titles.
So. The PRSC is gone.
My first question is: so what did the PRSC actually do, and when did they do it? Forgive my scientific training – but that needs a timeline, methinks. Here goes:
The PRSC Timeline
* Trust me – you’ll want to see this fullscreen. Your browser will open a new tab and it’ll look much nicer that it does when confined to the box below. Hint: You can scroll through it using the arrows, or jump to a particular spot on the timeline.
** I designed this to be a live dataset – to be easily updated as errors and omissions are found and reported. Be brutally critical – and send me an email. My hope is that what remains will stand the test of time.
Whew! I think that’s enough for one arm’s length limited partnership. More soon.